Skip to main content

Le Femme Nikita (Peta Wilson version) rant

Captain's Log, Stardate 10.21.2009

(Warning: spoilers ahead, but I’ll tell you when I’m about to reveal)

I’ve been watching the TV series Le Femme Nikita (Peta Wilson) on Netflix, and while the first DVD didn’t thrill me, it hooked me by the second DVD of Season one. And the writing and acting really pleased me, for the most part. I enjoyed all the way up through most of season four.

Then it tanked for me.

I liked how the plot twists and turns in each season, developing new nuances of character and relationships. There are a few “throw away” episodes that just fill up the slot in the season, but most of the episodes embellish on character or backstory or plotline.

But then the stories started to fall apart logically, in my thinking. There’s a lot of “Let’s have the character do something unusual” and then reveal some hidden agenda behind it all—except the reasoning behind the character’s actions aren’t always logical in the writing.

There’s also too much of the same thing—namely, “Let’s issue a kill order for Michael or Nikita or both of them,” followed by “Well, let’s cancel that kill order for reason XYZ” which isn’t always a good reason. After enough “let’s kill them”/”let’s not,” it gets old.

SPOILER START

Some plot elements were rather interesting to me, like chemically turning off Nikita’s neural relationship centers so she doesn’t love Michael or connect with any other human being. But then having Michael reverse the process and not get killed for it is not believable.

And then that ending to season four? Come on. WHY did she have to (1) go rogue to escape, (2) come back to get Michael, and (3) get caught all to somehow “test” Section One and reveal she’s Mr. Jones’s mole? What was the purpose of all of that? And then it somehow triggers this evaluation period for everybody?

Although that scene where she’s about to die and Walter says goodbye did make me tear up. Walter’s so sweet.

But too many things that were a logical disconnect ruined the season ending episodes for me. Considering she has only ever wanted to escape Section, why would she act out of character and go back as a mole for Mr. Jones? And in doing so, that doesn’t explain so many of the things she did in the previous seasons. It’s like the writers just decided to whip that puppy out of their hats and ta-dah! isn’t that a cool twist?

Um, no. Not if it doesn’t make sense and there haven’t been clues dropped beforehand to foreshadow or somehow prepare the audience. The way it was done, it was just too random and convenient.

(And folks, if I ever do a “Let’s introduce an hitherto unknown twin sibling and then kill off the character and have the twin pose as his/her twin for some dangerous mission,” please somebody shoot me.)

SPOILER END

So now I’m watching season five, and it just sucks. Some key characters are missing, there are bigger and more logic flaws, and the Nikita character is a different personality, even.

They should have stopped at the second to the last episode of season four, in my opinion. Happy ending to be had for all.

I don’t know if I’ll finish watching season five. Life is too short to waste on bad TV.

Comments

Diane said…
I rode the same rollercoaster ride you are describing with that show. The chemistry between them was awesome and I could have lived with that alone, but when the crazy writing kept coming at you it was hard to enjoy the rest. Wonder why it ended abruptly...:O)
Winnie said…
I'm really hoping that doesn't happen with Castle. I like the show because of the quips, the writing is great, and the chemistry between the characters is outstanding. If they fall of that wagon and make it suck, I'm out, faster than you can wink.

That's what happened with Heroes. Won't watch it now, they ruined it. Season 1 was great, after that, not so great. Can't get in to it now, and won't.
Camy Tang said…
Diane, I think the show got canceled midway in season five, but that's just a guess on my part.

Winnie, I feel the same way about Heroes!

Camy
Angi said…
I haven't watched this series, but I love watching series on NetFlix - my favorite is ALIAS! Loved it!

Popular Posts

Chinese Take-Out and Sushi for One

Captain’s Log, Supplemental My agent sent me an article from Publisher’s Weekly that discussed this incident: Chinese Take-Out Spawns Christian Controversy And here’s also a blog post that talks about it in more detail: The Fighting 44s This is Soong-Chan Rah’s blog: The PCS blog In sum: Apparently Zondervan (yes, my publisher), who has partnered with Youth Specialties, had put out a youth leaders skit that had stereotypical Asian dialogue, which offended many Christian Asian Americans. In response to the outcry, Zondervan/Youth Specialities put out a sincere apology and is not only freezing the remaining stock of the book, but also reprinting it and replacing the copies people have already bought. I am very proud of my publisher for how they have handled this situation. The skit writers have also issued a public apology . (I feel sorry for them, because they were only trying to write a funny skit, not stir up this maelstrom of internet controversy. I’ve been in youth work long enou...

Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And...

Excerpt - A HUNDRED YEARS OF HAPPINESS by Nicole Seitz

Captain's Log, Stardate 03.05.2009 Update: Sorry, this giveaway is closed. A Hundred Years of Happiness by Nicole Seitz A beautiful young woman. An American soldier. A war-torn country. Nearly forty years of silence. Now, two daughters search for the truth they hope will set them free and the elusive peace their parents have never found. In the South Carolina Lowcountry, a young mother named Katherine Ann is struggling to help her tempestuous father, by plunging into a world of secrets he never talks about. A fry cook named Lisa is trying desperately to reach her grieving Vietnamese mother, who has never fully adjusted to life in the States. And somewhere far away, a lost soul named Ernest is drifting, treading water, searching for what he lost on a long-ago mountain. They're all longing for connection. For the war that touched them to finally end. For their hundred years of happiness at long last to begin. From the beloved author of The Spirit of Sweetgrass...

I got my cover!

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Blog book giveaway: To enter, go to the blog links below and post a comment there. Eyes of Elisha by Brandilyn Collins Tangerine by Marilynn Griffith I GOT MY COVER!!!! What do you guys think?

Cover Reveal + New Logo for Year of the Dog, a Mahina Security Novel

A New Look for Year of the Dog (and a Behind-the-Scenes Oops!) What do a dog trainer, a security expert, and a nearly-naked book cover have in common? Let me explain. 😅 Year of the Dog is the first book in my Christian romantic suspense series, Mahina Security, set in beautiful (and sometimes dangerous) Hawaii. It features quirky humor, family tensions, sweet romance, and a mystery involving a missing person—and it’s now available to read in the Christian suspense anthology, Danger in the Shadows , on Kindle Unlimited ! But before that happened, I had a bit of a cover mishap… While creating the ebook cover, I realized that the original stock photo made my heroine look, well, completely nekkid. 😳 She’s actually wearing a tube top in the image, but when I cropped it for the ebook, the top disappeared—leaving her looking very PG-13. To fix it, I did some Canva magic on a strappy top from another image and stuck it onto the model (so she’s decent now). But when I resize...